Summary & Analysis

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Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980)

Anti-Semite and Jew

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Summary

The Critique of Dialectical Reason, published
in 1960, is Sartre’s greatest attempt at synthesizing his existentialist
philosophy with sociological analysis. In the work, his previous
focus on human freedom and responsibility is placed within a corresponding
analysis of the specific structures of domination that humanity
confronted in 1960. In the Critique, Sartre deconstructs
the individual actions of capitalists and imperialists while dissecting
the oppressive and suffocating institutions that uphold established
political and economic structures.

Sartre states that he is a Marxist, in the sense that
he believes in the aim of a classless society and the abolition
of private property. However, he approaches the assumptions and
dictums of Marxism with a critical eye. His implicit goal is not
to show how existentialism is compatible with orthodox Marxism.
Rather, in Critique of Dialectical Reason he offers
a corrective to Marxism and demonstrates how his views on ontology
and freedom can be synthesized with a new articulation of Marxist
ideology.

Sartre affirms that his own dialectical philosophy shares
much with its two most famous exponents—Hegel, its originator, and subsequently
Marx. He shares a basic understanding with Hegel and Marx of the
dialectic relationship between man the universe he inhabits. Simply
put, Sartre echoes these thinkers in writing that man exists mutually with
the world. Man affects the universe, and in turn, the universe affects
man. Placed in a societal framework, the dialectic iterates that
man both forms and is formed by the social, political, and economic
forces that surround him. Sartre states that philosophy is born
from this dialectic. The philosophy of “the moment” is simply the
consciousness of the ascendant class, asserting its identity and
seeking its freedom.

Regarding the Marxist philosophy of history, however,
Sartre writes that he disagrees with the idea that the future is
determined and that the project of man is prophesized by the history
of man. He regards this as foolish, for as he emphasizes time and
again in other works and reiterates here, man is condemned to freedom,
and man is constantly becoming. Sartre affirms that the free individual
certainly interacts dialectically with the world, with other individuals, and
with the collective. Yet the constant and inherent complexity and
transience of these relationships cannot be reduced to a simple dialectic,
such as capital versus labor, that has one inevitable endpoint.
This version of history is the traditional Marxist one, and Sartre
has major misgivings about the determinism inherent in it.

Analysis

Although Sartre was certainly a Marxist, the Critique
of Dialectical Reason details where his thought diverges
from mainstream Marxism. Sartre deeply questioned the more rationalist
or positivist elements of Enlightenment thought, and, fittingly,
he also has some misgivings about the Marxist view of history as
essentially mechanistic and predictable. Sartre disagreed strongly
with the idea that human consciousness is determined by material
realities, such as a society’s mode of production. He argues that
consciousness emanates from man, the being-for-itself, and is not
imposed on him by social or material realities. Consciousness is
beyond matter and thus exists independently of a dialectic that
views man as an object.

Sartre, as he evolved both as a philosopher and a political
activist, came to focus much of his energy on changing the institutions and
systems in the world that he felt were repressive for both individuals
and society as a whole. During the 1960s, the Cold War rolled on
and the process of decolonization in the third world moved gingerly
along. Sartre became an outspoken critic of imperialism in any form,
most famously voicing his support for the Algerian resistance to
French occupation. On this subject, Sartre wrote the forward to
Franz Fanon’s seminal anticolonial work, The Wretched of
the Earth. In the context of the Cold War, Sartre maintained
his support for the Soviet Union and developing countries, such
as Cuba, that had chosen a socialist path.

Whatever inconsistencies may exist in his philosophical
oeuvre, Sartre’s commitment to the social and political battles
he viewed as most important in his day was always impassioned and
unwavering. As he expresses time and again in his philosophy, Sartre
believed above all else in the innate freedom of humanity. Critique
of Dialectical Reason is the work in which Sartre most
thoroughly articulates how his philosophy, if at times abstract,
is directed toward concrete change in the empirical, lived reality
of individuals and societies.

I became confused at ''the individual nonetheless projects himself by ascribing meaning to, or taking meaning from, his concrete characteristics and thus negating them''. What does it actually mean when you say ''projects'' and how this relates to taking/ascribing meaning? I'm not clear on what that actually entails... and as well, how does this lead to negation?

Another question, it seems to me that Sartre's philosophy is based on the assumption of free will. Is this true? If so, how can he be sure free will exists or does he just take for granted that it does? If not, then I must have completely misunderstood the whole article.

This comment is rather long but it attempts to fill in some of the gaps left by the Spark Notes web description.

In the Critique of Dialectical Reason Sartre explains that the practico-inert, as man-made physical substance, is the major force in maintaining social control when run by hegemonies seeking to limit human freedom. Sartre conceives a notional progression running from the lone individual, to the fusing group, to the pledged group, to the organisation, to the ossified institutions that surround us all, thus giving the reader ... Read more→